Dark Matter S2E4 Recap and Analysis: Loving the Monster

The following recap contains spoilers for Dark Matter S2E4, “Stars, Hide Your Fires” (written by Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry & Blake Crouch, and directed by Charlotte Sieling).

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Welcome, dear reader, as we continue to review the second season of the Apple TV series Dark Matter with Season 2 Episode 4: “Stars, Hide Your Fires.” This is the first episode where the title wasn’t something taken directly out of the dialogue. The line is a quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with the full line being: “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

What are we to make of it? It is the line of someone who knows they are the monster, but has enough awareness to want to hide their inner darkness from the light. The obvious monster of the episode is Jason 2, being directly named as such by Ryan. He and Amanda contemplate whether to trap the monster in slacker Ryan’s world, or give him access to countless other realities. Amanda speaks up for him, though, saying that he’s not going to make anyone’s life awful.

That leaves us with the other named monster of the episode, Leighton Vance. After returning from plague world—and a few side trips—he has a meditation session with Oluko. Guru Leighton used to think the path of his life hinged on a single choice, until he met Leighton Vance. Then he received the wonderful gift of being able to meet himself, the monster, and to love him. Nothing weird or creepy about that.

Regrets

We start this episode taking a step back into the previous episode. We’re back with CEO Leighton at the hospital, getting asked one more time if he’s sure he doesn’t want to talk to his grandfather. This was a bit of an emotional moment for him last episode, where he was even getting a little teary-eyed on us. Maybe not the best mental state to be in and step into the box, eh?

First stop, Jason 1’s world. Where Agent MacNamara and the DARPA crew have set up quite the command center. Vance is a little stunned at first, looking around the chaotic room, until he lights upon Jason 13, who gives him a silent shake of the head to say, you don’t want to be here, buddy.

Mac is oh so friendly to their new arrival, but Leighton nopes outta there nonetheless. Inside the box, he seems to be genuinely disappointed. Like maybe that was where he intended to go, but he just didn’t expect the welcoming committee. And now, of course, that world is cut off to him. Possibly forever.

On his second try, he pops out into World X, as the traveler who respawned the box to Jason 1’s shock and dismay. Once again, we replay scenes from last episode, but this time from Leighton’s perspective. Jason comes out to talk to him, and we find out Leighton was trying to find his Jason, Jason 2. He’s glad he’s run into Jason 1 though, because it gives him a chance to say he’s sorry. He chose the wrong door today and Jason 1 won’t ever see him in this world again.

Holding Together

Despite that promise, Jason has suddenly come around to Daniela’s idea from S2E2 that things would be a lot easier if they weren’t in Chicago. He’s ready to get packing, but Charlie is not having it. This is his life too and he’s not starting over again. Danielle makes it clear she’s not leaving him, and of course Jason would not do that either.

So, with Charlie as their anchor point, they carry on with their new life. Charlie starts his new job at Eduardo’s mom’s restaurant, and Eduardo’s mom turns out to be none other than Amanda. I’m in, I don’t care anymore. I love it. Here is an Amanda who gave up her professional career as a psychologist and instead has a great kid and is running her own family business. Would our Amanda be jealous of this version of herself and want to swap lives? Of course not.

Meanwhile, both Jason and Daniela are experiencing more instances of PTSD. Both of them have run-ins with imagined Jasons, but the bigger problem is Jason twice now visualizing the box door. Remember that everything inside the box, the endless corridor lined with doors, is really just the mind’s way of interpreting what is happening. Given that, when he starts seeing the doors out in the real world, this could be more than just PTSD.

Here again, as I’ve speculated before, we seem to be driving towards the advent of people being able to travel realities without the box and without the drug. We’ll see where they go with this throughout the rest of the season.

This Is Our Story to Tell

The gang of four deliver slacker Ryan back to his world, stopping off first at the old watering hole with our ever-faithful bartender, Matt. Ryan calls his double up to sit beside him and together they proceed to make up a story—a hilarious story—about how he found his long-lost twin through a home DNA test, and overcame some drama with the woman who kidnapped / raised him. I would have happily lingered on them for the rest of the episode, just spinning that yarn.

Meanwhile, Jason 2 pulls Amanda aside to apologize to her. He’s trying to manipulate her into feeling sorry for him, and she’s not having any of his pop psychology. She eviscerates him as a coward who is scared to death of true intimacy. He needs to grow up and do the work. Either become the better person whose life he wanted so bad that he sunk to stealing it, or stop with the lies and just be himself.

Here again, there’s a contrast between what Amanda is saying and what Oluko is saying. Amanda believes in choices and that it’s the choices we make that make the person. Jason 2 can still choose not to be the monster. Oluko believes that being the monster is inherent and it doesn’t matter what choices were made. Meeting his double has allowed him to see the monster in himself and he’s learning to love it. He is on the path to a dangerous destiny.

Keep Off the Grass

Everyone crashes at slacker Ryan’s pad, and in the morning the remaining three travelers set off again. I’m going to miss this version of Ryan, though he did get some Lilac Wings before they left, so the door is always open for his return. That’s good. Ryan also gives some Lilac Wings to Jason 2 at Amanda’s behest. Jason 2 wants to do some good, like Amanda suggested. He doesn’t know what yet, but he promises to not make anyone else’s lives awful.

On their return to polite sex world, Amanda and Ryan take a moment to relax on a park bench and plan Ryan’s future as a stand-up comic. Suddenly, they are surrounded and we find out that this world does actually have real police officers, with real guns and riot gear.

They’ve broken quarantine and curfew. A quick body scan says they’re clear, which is apparently impossible. These officers know them by name as Amanda Lucas and Ryan Holder, and ask them to come of their own accord with them. Though they are prepared to restrain them if necessary. Strong words indeed for this world. What could possibly have happened here in just a few days?

Empty Nest

On World X, life carries on and eventually it’s time to send Charlie off to college. He tells them it’s not like he’s not going to see them again. They live in the same city. But his parents know better. The apartment is quiet without him. So quiet.

Daniela goes jogging one day, letting her mind wander, reliving all that’s happened to her in the last few years. Her body instinctually takes her back to the neighborhood where she grew up, and there is her dad’s old store, exactly the way it was when she was a kid. Her dad could be alive in this reality. Jason is wowed by the idea, but then it’s back to work on his new hobby.

He’s not going to the box in person, but he’s still trying to shut it down. If he can work out the math of the entanglement equations, he can figure out how to disentangle their box from the others. Because brute force is obviously not the answer. He thinks he’s doing what he needs to do to protect them, but it’s just scaring Daniela.

Eventually she breaks down and finally confesses her fears. There’s nothing Jason can do. She thinks she needs to go away. This is not her leaving him. He is still her person, and she his. But she just needs to find her way.

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode:

• Why was Leighton trying to find Jason 2? Coming off that emotional moment with his grandfather, he seemed to be thinking about his life’s regrets. Was he looking to bury the hatchet with Jay and bring him back into the fold?
• When Leighton told Jason 1 that he was looking for Jason 2, I think he was only talking about his first destination, with his brief glimpse of the DARPA crew who also had Jason 2 on their minds. When he popped out into World X, I think that was just to take a breather. It’s a safe world where the box is sequestered away from prying eyes, and he can go out into the courtyard and touch grass for a bit. I think this further implies that he’s been here before, delivering the secrets of microprocessors and cell phones to World X’s version of himself.
• At the bar, we find out that Jason 1 knows sign language. He’s full of surprises, as he tells Matt. Interesting development. Put a pin in that one and let’s see if that doesn’t come up later in the season.
• Daniela and Charlie go visit the Art Institute of Chicago (yes, the one featured in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). The painting Daniela chooses is A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. Charlie chooses Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.
• Though they do have guns on polite sex world, did you notice that they are green in color?
• The music just continues to be killing it this season. I especially loved “Blush,” by Wolf Alice, which played during Daniela’s jogging montage.
• Congrats to our own Jennifer Connelly for being named TVLine’s Performer of the Week for last week’s episode.
• In the official podcast for Episode 3, they clarify that the plague world Leighton brought the vaccine to is not the same plague world where Jason 1 sat vigil with a dying Daniela in S1E5. However, it is the same “black iris plague,” as they name it, and it was transmitted across worlds via the box. This is huge, and they are just hoping people caught that, which I’m guessing most of us did not. They further imply that is not the only bad thing to be transmitted in that manner (think murder hornets—yikes).
• That said, the CDC doctor who is talking to Vance is Dr. Julianne Springer, played by Jenne Kang. This same character showed up in S1E2 as the doctor who runs a battery of tests on Jason 1 when he checks himself into the hospital, the CDC doctor who gives him five doses of morphine for Daniela in S1E5, and now again as a CDC doctor but on a different plague world, if the podcast is to be believed. A tad confusing.
• All of this leaves us to wonder, has the black iris plague now been transmitted to polite sex world as well? I sure hope not.

Best lines of the episode:

• “Well, hi there. Where’d you come from?”
• “Jason f***ing Dessen.”
• “This is my life too, and I’m not going to start over again.”
• “She has a name. It’s Joyce.”
• “I became fascinated by a version of me who had given up even trying to achieve, but he had all the things that I had given up on. And he was completely himself.”
• “Don’t mine my sympathy for your emotional needs.”
• “Your buns are burning.”
• “Yeah, me not breaking up with her is keeping my options open.”
• “Oh, there’s a no trespassing sign, you see that? It says, our spirit gently asks your spirit to consider moving your activities to a different location, if you don’t mind. Will you be our friend?”
• “He has to go to ALL of them.”
• “Yeah, I’m trying, in a different way.”
• “You’re my person. I’m yours. I just need to find my way.”

Conclusion

Last episode ended on a surprise arrival at the Dessens’ apartment. This time we end on a shocking departure. I would never have guessed that this was where we were headed at the beginning of the season. Where will Daniela go? To visit her father? To go stalk this world’s version of herself? And what have Ryan and Amanda stepped into on their world? Just when everything seems to be beautiful, it starts to go terrible.

That’s all for this week. Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about this week’s episode, and any theories you have on what’s to come, in the comments below. Remember that TV Obsessive will provide continuing coverage of Dark Matter throughout Season 2 and beyond.

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All images courtesy of Apple TV